Umrao Singh Bisht-Search Engine Marketing Tips And News

I also started Tweeting on Twitter.

2009-01-30T03:38:00.000-08:00

Twitter, twitter and twitter. It seems now everybody started tweeting. Different people use twitter for different purpose. Twitter ask you a simple question- "What are you doing?" Some people use Twitter to share their personal thoughts, some shares about conferences and places they visited and some shares knowledge about their products to generate revenue (serious game).

If you are already following on twitter, I am sure your home page is flooded with tweets. I joined twitter last week and got more that 1000+ tweets!!

The question arises here about the value we are getting from twitter or the importance of twitter. Well I think we can exploit twitter to get updates and news about new things around us. The kind of tweets you are getting depends upon whom you are following and what you are tweeting.

If you are following people who are in same profession to you, it will give you good learning about your industry. If you are replying to the tweets then it will surely help to create long time relations. The twitter business model is now loved and accepted by everyone, atleast after Dell made $ 1 million just by tweeting!!

Tweeter is a very effective medium to connect and share with your friends, colleagues, relatives and other. It help to inform about what are you doing and whats your plans over weekend and so on.

So now I want to share some simple tips and tools to use your twitter for making friends, informing your manager or as a marketing tool.

If you have long description beyond 140 characters, then you can use www.140it.com to shrink your tweets.
If you want to provide some links in twitter, then use www.tinyurl.com to shrink your long URLS.
Always try to tweet latest things which provide some information and help to your followers.
Always try to reply reply if you found some helpful information from the people you are following
If you found some business leaders, speakers and professional friends, then connect with them to linkedin or other professional network.

So this time when you login to twitter, try to apply the above tips and keep posting me about new tips and updates about twitter :)

Follow me @ www.twitter.com/umrao81

Google adwords tests new interface

2009-01-29T21:00:00.000-08:00

Here is a good news, if u got bored with the old interface of google adwords. Recently Google tested new interface of adwords. This interface may be come soon to your adwords accounts. Here are some screens.

Paid Search Spending

2008-11-13T01:17:00.000-08:00

Recently I had read many articles and blogs which were claiming the decrease in paid search spending due to slow down in economy. But I was not convinced with those facts . Paid search is known for its low budget quality which is under advertisers control. I think paid search is the best way to advertise if your want to do reduce your advertising budgets. Recent survey conducted by Juipter research claims that the big advertiser are going to increase their paid search budget.
According to that survey More than eight out of 10 marketers who spent at least $50,000 per month on paid search said they planned to maintain or increase their spending during the next 12 months.

The above table directly states that 55% spenders are planning to increase their advertising budget and 28% are planning to maintain the existing budget. However only 17% respondents are planning to decrease their paid search spending.
The big advertisers are giving emphasis on better paid search campaign management tools.
According to juipter research more than 90% respondents are saying that they are ready to spend 22% more if they have better campaign management tools.

According to emarketer estimates the paid search spending will be double by 2013.

According to emarketer the total paid search spending will increase to $59,000 as compare to $24,900 in 2008. Here search campaigns will contribute to 40% of total spend. The video ads will also show a good spending. As this ad format attracts adults and gen X.

eventhought there is economy crisis but the paid serah will be the most favourite channel of advertising as this is more focused.

AdWords Conversion Optimizer Criteria changed

2008-10-15T21:01:00.000-07:00

Google adwords Conversion optimizer is now available to most of your campaigns. Now one can use adwords conversion optimizer to any campaign with atleast 50 conversions in last 30 days which was earlier 200. By doing so i think now there is chances to see the realibility and result of this conversion optimizer. Now more B to B sites and ecommerce sites will use this tool. As we know the conversion Optimizer uses our conversion tracking data to get more conversion at lower cost.
It achieves this by optimizing your placement in each ad auction to avoid unprofitable clicks and get you as many profitable clicks as possible.

So now if you are looking for more conversion at low cost then try conversion Optimizer even though you have very less(50) conversions.

and do share your experiences of conversion optimizer with me.

Outsourced SEM is better than in-house SEM

2007-10-22T03:32:00.000-07:00

This is a highly popular debatable topic in online industry. There are various views about in-house or outsourced SEM.

Today most of big companies are opening there in-house SEM. There views are that why not to train their Web programmers for SEM to do PPC and other online advertising models & practices. On the other hand the SEM companies say that this is not a tom, dick & harry game and there is a need of appropriate knowledge of SEM practices to be given.

They accept that there is need to give technical knowledge of Web programming relating to search engines. In the recent time many big Offline advertising companies approach up with their online advertising firms like Ogilvy opened Neo@ogilvy and percept holdings opened percept Knorigin.

My opinion is:-

I think for a huge web site there is need of some experienced SEM professional to clutch SEM models. As the web site is big that mean there is numbers of campaigns and ad groups in that account which leads of thousands of keywords. Also if there are different campaigns according to geographic location then the number of keywords may increase. Also if there are some seasonal or short term schemes are associated with the website and the web site is big, so it is not possible for an in-house SEM professional to manage.

Apart from this I think the experts of SEM only can comprehend the marketing tools to make SEM easy. They can occasional do competitor analysis, keyword research and other things which are directly or indirectly associated to SEM.

Reasons for why in-house SEM is ineffective:-

The SEM is not an easy game. Google ad words and Yahoo panama is not so simple. There is a need of daily check ups to the campaigns. Also there is a need to find out the performing keywords and optimization accordingly. Here in-house marketers don’t have time to give full dedication to the online campaigns.
A trained professional can easily manage the monthly budget and can prevents overspend in the last of month. He put daily budget accordingly to spend the money same as monthly budget.
The most important thing here is tracking and analysis. The proper analysis is done with proper reporting. In-house marketer lakes in proper reporting. An expert SEM professional can do reporting and do the analysis accordingly. He also put his comments and recommendations to improve the campaigns to achieve the target.
The Google ad words and yahoo panama having online advertising policies. The in-house marketers are unable to know the exact policies, which may create a problem for the website or Google can ban certain issues which may affect leads.

The SEM expert is well aware of Policies as he may be a Google advertising professional (GAP) or a yahoo ambassador. So if there is

The last but not the least thing is that the in-house SEM have no direct support from Google, yahoo(Overture), MSN and other search engines, whereas in case of SEM agencies have a direct support from these search engines.

So the above are my views. It is clear that I support Outsourced (Agency) SEM, but still I am confused somewhat, so waiting for your comments and your opinion on the same.

Your comments????????

Need Leads? Be creative

2007-07-31T05:27:00.000-07:00

According to a recent survey now companies are spending much on online media. consumers today spend nearly half of their spare time on the internet. As this number continues to rise, consumer brand marketers have more opportunities than ever to reach their target audiences online.
So now marketers need to be sure they are reaching out to consumers with effective messages and great creative that catches and keeps their attention. The disadvantage of this media is that you have very less time to express your product and show your creativity. So, when creating any type of online media -- including polls, emails, landing pages and banners -- it's critical that your copy, messaging, graphics and call-to-action are not only clear and concise from a messaging standpoint, but also visually enticing.
The following steps may be helpful to generate good leads.

1. Strategy: It's easy to jump right into the creative design, but you need to analyze and brainstorm first. Before getting started, ask yourself these questions:

What am I trying to accomplish?
Who am I trying to target?
What am I trying to get my target audience to do?

2. Message: Your messaging needs to be concise and easy for the consumer to understand. It's important that the call-to-action is clear with no room for confusion. If consumers don't understand what is being asked of them, they are likely not to click through.

3. Graphics: Use dynamic imagery that is relevant to the offer. Always use:

Your brand and logo.
Product shot.
Image that relates to the product or offer. For example, if the media is a poll asking consumers to weigh in on their favorite movies, the relevant image might be a box of movie theatre popcorn.
Shots of people are also very effective.

4. Content: Don't overwhelm consumers with too much copy, color or graphics. Only incorporate the necessities since you only have a few seconds to convince consumers to click through and provide their valuable contact data.

5. Make it interactive: Whenever possible, make your online media interactive for the consumer. This will help grab and keep their attention. Here's one way to make your online media more compelling and active for your audience:

Include rich media video or flash demonstrations, commercials or promotions -- complete with audio -- to your registration forms, emails, et cetera. This enables marketers to deliver interactive branding messages at precisely the moment they are collecting valuable consumer contact data and product preferences.

6. Keep it simple: When designing any online media, while it needs to be dynamic in design, be sure to keep it simple, consistent and attractive to your target audience. Always remember to:

Keep use of fonts to a minimum.
Stay consistent with color throughout your design.
Make sure copy, messaging, call-to-action and images all relate to each other.

For more on Search engine Marketing and Generating leads visit:-

http://www.1-hit.com/

http://www.searchland.com/

http://www.imediaconnection.com/

http://www.alootechie.com/

2007-04-27T04:52:00.000-07:00

Know your clients USPs
Knowing everything concerning your client is an excellent strategy. The USPs of a client is vital. In today competitive world, if you are dealing in certain product, then there are chances that someone else is also dealing in same thing. So before setting up the clients account the first thing is to know the USPs. I.e. unique selling proposition. The special offers, free shipping, discounted price, free trial, buy one get one free offers etc are several winning USPs of your client. at this point, one thing which to be concerned is that counterfeit and unnecessary promises can throw you out so be aware of all possible USPs which is offered in website. Search out each and every page of website because the offers also are product specific.
Today the world has changed mightily. It’s Permission Marketing time. The prospective purchaser is in control. If people don’t know about your company or website, then you’ve somehow got to stand out from the crowd. It’s Pull Marketing that you’ve got to practice. Technically Unique Selling Proposition is hardly the right term. No one is going to wait around to hear a proposition from someone they’ve never heard of. Indeed some people now use USP to mean Unique Selling Point, and that’s perhaps a better working definition now.
Whether it is Unique Selling Proposition or Unique Selling Point, the essence of the USP is still correct. It’s got to be something that is attractive to that potential purchaser and is in a sense unique. They won’t be able to get the same thing from anyone else and it’s got to be transmitted almost in the blink of an eye before they click away to one of the many other potential suppliers.
So before starting any campaign please have a gentle look at client website and note down every single advantage of website.

Know Your Client Requirement

2007-04-18T01:35:00.001-07:00

If you are starting a PPC campaign, then to know what your client wants is most significant thing on which you have to do effort. If any one wants to give a desired target to his client then he should do an intense research on client’s website and his position in marketplace.
Today is the time for a strapping competition so you have to be get geared up for every single competitor. If your client is dealing with hottest Gadgets like apple ipods, ipod shuffle, ipod nano etc and electronics like Sony bravio TV, haier DVD players, latest nokia, Motorola and Sony Ericsson mobile phones etc then you have to be updated with the current happening in gadget market.
Knowing your client means to know what the client requirement. Is he wanted merely clicks or impressions or he want some sales out of it. Some times the client want to do an experiment with his product to know what is the response on his product. So if you are managing a client’s website, you have to be aware with every single thing which may be a winning point for your company and your client.
Apart from this a research on the competitor’s activities is very good strategy as it tells what the USPs of competitor is? For example if your client want to sell the new apple ipod shuffle by mean of some simple contest then you can also be ready to do so. You have to search out his competitor in order to beat the competition and get sales for your client. What offers and discounts is your competitor giving in order to sell his ipod shuffle. So before doing any other work related to setting account for your client first thing is to do a deep research on client website, product and competitor.
You have to find out what keywords your competitor is using for selling the same products which you are selling.
So know your client and his competitors and generate winning lead for your client.

Marketing plan for generating leads

2007-04-17T06:18:00.001-07:00

Starting Google Adwords may be anyone’s cup of tea, but generating lead is much tricky. Generating leads implies that you are giving a desired profit to your client and your company. So if you know the technique to generate leads means you are the right person in search engine marketing world. May be there are various ways to generate leads, but according to me the following are the ways to generate better leads:

1. Know Your Client Requirements: Knowing your client is the foremost thing to do in order to get leads. This includes to find out what your client wants, does he wants sale from the site or just want sign ups and impressions.
Apart from this a research on the competitor’s activities is very good strategy as it tells what the USPs of competitor are?

2. Know Your Client’s USPs: Before starting creating Ads and ad copies the best way is to find out the USPs of your client. We have to do a deep research on client’s website. We have to find out what special things are offered by our client like “free offers”, “Discounts”, free gifts”, “free shipping” etc. The USP of client help us to attract more click and leads in the crowd of competitors.

3. Categorization of Campaigns: This is the most important way to generate leads. When start making campaigns one must know who is targeted users and clients limitations. While making campaigns we have to be careful to select targeted country and territory. For example if we want to target in US we have to select the targeted US with language US English. Choosing wrong country/ territory may bring lots of impressions and clicks but no conversions, which is harmful for the client and company.

4. Creating specific Ad groups: while we creating ad groups we have to keep certain things in mind. The ad groups should not merge with each other. We have to first create ad group on the basis of general themes like brand, generic, product, misspelling, and competitor. Apart from ad group can be created on the basis of USPs of client and offers and value added services.

5. Creating earning Keywords: making a long list of useless keywords may be harmful the keyword created should be specific and associated to the product. The keyword should be according to the landing page. Unimportant keywords may give you a good traffic but not a good lead. The keyword type in adwords is also very important. Most of the times we should give phrase match to our keywords. Broad match is given only when the product or brand is unique and exact match is used when we know what exactly a user will type for instance, if a user wants Bajaj Coolest PC2005 cooler then he may type bajaj pc2005 or pc2005 and if these keywords are exact match then this is very obvious that user is searching exclusively this model of bajaj cooler and this will not waste impressions on the ads related to the product and the CTR will be high.
Most of the time the keyword should be taken from landing page and using adwords keyword tool is also helpful.
6. Appropriate Ad Text: Ad text should be appealing. It should contain a strong call to action phrase to attract user to click on your ad. The ad text should be relevant to the landing page there should not be any false promises and commitments like free shipping, free, discounts etc. if they are not offered in the site.
The words used in the ad text should be according to the targeted country like the word vacation is not so popular in UK. So we have to use holiday rather than vacation for a campaign targeted to UK.
The headline of the ad text should contain your keywords because when the user type keywords, your ad will show with ad title highlighted which increases the possibility of getting clicked.
Rather than using a single ad text for an ad group we have to experiment with different ad text in our ad group.
The language of the ad text should be easy to understand and dynamic keyword should be used so the ad text seems more relevant to the keyword searched by the user.

7. Landing Page: The landing page plays a vital role in generating leads. When a user clicks on your ad it should take him/her to a proper page. For example if a user is searching for chocolates but after clicking on ad he is directed to the flower page, he would go back or close the page. So the chances of getting conversions are less. So deep linking for each ad is mandatory.

8. Optimizing Ads and Keywords: The product and service of client may changes with the time and occasions so we have to keep eye on the changes and then to optimize our existing keywords and ad texts. Apart from this doing a research on current competitors and accordingly making your ads and keywords may also be a good strategy to get lead.

Conclusion: - The above mentioned measures may be helpful in getting proper ROI and generating leads but these measures are not the limits of the adwords lead generating tools and ideas.

Marketing plan for generating leads

2007-04-17T06:18:00.000-07:00